On This Date In 1606 The great Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn was born in Leiden, the son of a miller. His humble origins may help account for the uncommon depth of compassion given to the human subjects of his art. His more than 600 paintings, many of them portraits or self-portraits, are characterized by rich brushwork and color, and a dramatic interplay of shadow and light.
On This Date In 1789 With disorder and theft spreading in Paris, the citizens of the city met and agreed to create a militia made up of the middle-class to ensure the maintenance of law and order and the defense of the Constitution. Marquis de la Fayette was elected to the post of commander in chief of the militia on July 15, and it was named the National Guard. Each city of France set up its own National Guard.
On This Date In 1806 Zebulon Pike, the U.S. Army officer who in 1805 led an exploring party in search of the source of the Mississippi River, set off with a new expedition to explore the American Southwest. Pike was instructed to seek out headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers and to investigate Spanish settlements in New Mexico.
On This Date In 1862 The Battle of Apache Pass was fought at Apache Pass in Arizona, United States, between Apache warriors and the California Column as it marched from California to New Mexico.
On This Date In 1862 The CSS Arkansas, the most effective ironclad on the Mississippi River, battled with Union ships commanded by Admiral David Farragut, severely damaging three ships and sustaining heavy damage herself. The encounter changed the complexion of warfare on the Mississippi and helped to reverse Rebel fortunes on the river in the summer of 1862.
On This Date In 1864 The Great Shohola train wreck occurred on July 15, 1864 during the American Civil War on the broad gauge Erie Railroad 1½ miles west of Shohola, Pennsylvania and killed at least 60 people. Two noble engines were almost entirely demolished, the "171" and "237." http://www3.gendisasters.com/pennsylvania/5228/shohola,-pa-civil-war-prisoner-train-disaster,-july-1864
On This Date In 1888 The Bandai volcano erupted on the Japanese island of Honshu, killing hundreds and burying many nearby villages in ash.
On This Date In 1903 The newly formed Ford Motor Company took its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat). The car, produced at Ford's plant on Mack Street (now Mack Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a week later.
On This Date In 1918 The Second Battle of the Marne, or Battle of Reims (July 15 to August 6, 1918) was the last major German Spring Offensive on the Western Front during World War I. It failed when an Allied counterattack led by French forces overwhelmed the Germans, inflicting severe casualties.
On This Date In 1919 Iris Murdoch, author of 26 intellectually rigorous novels, was born in Dublin. Murdoch was named a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 1987 and won many other awards during four decades of writing.
On This Date In 1941 Master spy Juan Pujol Garcia, nicknamed "Garbo," sent his first communique to Germany from Britain. One of double agent Garcia’s most effective deceptions took place in June 1944, when he managed to convince Hitler that the D-Day invasion of Normandy was just a "diversionary maneuver designed to draw off enemy reserves in order to make a decisive attack in another place" - playing right into the mindset of German intelligence, which had already suspected that this might be the case. (Of course, it wasn't.)
On This Date In 1944 The Second Battle of the Odon was a series of operations fought by the British Army in mid July 1944 against the German Army as part of the Battle of Normandy. The two operations launched, Greenline and Pomegranate, were designed to draw German attention away from the upcoming assault, out of the Orne bridgehead, codenamed Goodwood. No significant territorial gains were made but the operations were strategically successful keeping three German armoured divisions attracted to the west of Caen in the Odon river valley area and away from the Goodwood battlefield.
On This Date In 1964 Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) was nominated by the Republican Party to run for president.
On This Date In 1965 The unmanned spacecraft Mariner 4 passed over Mars at an altitude of 6,000 feet and sent back to Earth the first close-up images of the red planet. Once past Mars, Mariner 4 journeyed on to the far side of the sun before returning to the vicinity of Earth in 1967. Nearly out of power by then, communication with the spacecraft was terminated in December 1967.
On This Date In 1971 During a live television and radio broadcast, President Richard Nixon stunned the nation by announcing that he would visit communist China the following year. The statement marked a dramatic turning point in U.S.-China relations, as well as a major shift in American foreign policy.
On This Date In 1979 President Jimmy Carter addressed the nation via live television to discuss the nation's energy crisis, accompanying recession, and the nation’s “crisis in confidence”.
On This Date In 1986 Columbia Records dropped Johnny Cash from its roster after 26 years of history-making partnership. His 50 year career did not end there.
On This Date In 1988 “Die Hard”, a 1988 action film and the first in the Die Hard film series, which was produced by Lawrence and Charles Gordon, along with Joel Silver, was released. A huge box-office hit, the film established Bruce Willis as a movie star and spawned three sequels.
On This Date In 1994 “Angels in the Outfield”, a Disney film remake of the 1951 film of the same name, starring Danny Glover, Tony Danza and Christopher Lloyd, was released.
On This Date In 1997 “Deadly Sting: The Mercury Years”, a two disc set compilation album of hits, two live versions and two previously unreleased songs by the German heavy metal band Scorpions, was released by Mercury Records.
On This Date In 1997 Spree killer Andrew Cunanan murdered world-renowned Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace on the steps outside his Miami mansion. Versace was shot twice in the head, and Cunanan fled. However, on July 23, a nationwide manhunt ended just 40 blocks away from Versace's home on a two-level houseboat that Cunanan had broken into. There, police found him dead from a self-inflicted bullet wound from the same gun that took the lives of two of his victims. He left no suicide note.
On This Date In 1999 Through July 19, Paul Lawrie won his first major championship in a playoff over Jean Van de Velde and Justin Leonard. Lawrie, down by 10 strokes at the start of the fourth round, completed the biggest comeback in Open Championship history. The event was headlined by Van de Velde's triple-bogey at the last hole.
On This Date In 2002 John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," accepted a plea-bargain deal in which he plead guilty to one count of supplying services to the Taliban and carrying weapons. Under the terms of the deal, Walker Lindh agreed to serve 20 years in prison and cooperate with the American government in their investigation into the terrorist group al Qaeda. In return, all other charges against him were dropped, including one count of conspiring to kill U.S. nationals.
On This Date In 2003 “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic”, a role-playing game developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts, was released for the Xbox on July 15, for Microsoft Windows on November 19, and on September 7, 2004 for Mac OS X.
On This Date In 2003 Texas Earnest "Tex" Schramm, Jr. (June 2, 1920 - July 15, 2003), the original president and general manager of the National Football League's Dallas Cowboys franchise, died at age 83. Schramm became the head of the Cowboys when the former expansion team started operations in 1960.
On This Date In 2004 Through July 18 little-known American Todd Hamilton beat Ernie Els in a play-off to clinch the Open title at Royal Troon. The pair tied at 10 under when Hamilton bogeyed the last but he bounced back to win the four-hole play-off by a shot. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/golf/3905065.stm
On This Date In 2005 “Wedding Crashers”, a comedy film directed by David Dobkin, and starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, with Christopher Walken, Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Jane Seymour, Will Ferrell and Bradley Cooper, debuted in North American theaters.
On This Date In 2008 “Beautiful Eyes”, an EP by American country artist Taylor Swift was released exclusively at Wal-Mart stores. A limited number of albums were pressed so that the album would not be misidentified as Swift's second studio album, which was released on November 11, 2008.
On This Date In 2008 Caylee Marie Anthony was reported missing, a month after the toddler disappeared, according to her mother, Casey Anthony. Her body was later found near the home of Casey's parents, George and Cindy Anthony. Casey Anthony was indicted on October 14, 2008, for first-degree murder. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/topic/crime-law-justice/crimes/crime-victims/caylee-anthony-PECLB004332.topic
On This Date In 2009 Caspian Airlines Flight 7908, a scheduled commercial flight from Tehran, Iran, to Yerevan, Armenia, crashed near the village of Jannatabad, outside the city of Qazvin in north-western Iran. All 153 passengers and 15 crew on board died.
On This Date In 2009 “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”. a fantasy-adventure film based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling, and the sixth film in the Harry Potter film series, was released. It was directed by David Yates, produced by David Heyman and David Barron, and the screenplay was by Steve Kloves, screenwriter of the first four films.
On This Date In 2009 A technical snafu left some Visa prepaid cardholders stunned and horrified to see a $23,148,855,308,184,500 charge on their statements. “He noticed that his debt exceeded the world GDP while…” http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/15/quadrillion.dollar.glitch/index.html
On This Date In 2010 Video footage of Michael Jackson's hair catching fire during the filming of a Pepsi ad was released.
On This Date In 2010 BP's stock price jumped 7% on the news that the company had managed to plug the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. http://www.newser.com/story/95655/bp-stock-jumps-on-news-of-leak-stoppage.html A tightly fitted cap was successfully keeping oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time in three months. http://www.themonitor.com/articles/oil-40831-well-cap.html
Hat tip to any included contributing sources, along with: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page , http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history , http://timelines.com/
Happy Birthday Gloria Pall (1929), Alex Karras (1935), Patrick Wayne (1939), Anibal Cavaco Silva (1939), Jan-Michael Vincent (1944), Linda Ronstadt (1946), Arianna Huffington (1950), Jesse Ventura (1951), Joe Satriani (1956), Willie Aames (1960), Kim Alexis (1960), Lolita Davidovich (1961), Forest Whitaker (1961), Brigitte Nielsen (1963), Jason Bonham (1966), Eddie Griffin (1968), James Baldwin (1971), Scott Foley (1972), Brian Austin Green (1973), and Diane Kruger (1976).
RIP Enid Bennett (1893 - 1969), Nur Muhammad Taraki (1917 - 1979), Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999), and Ian Curtis (1956 - 1980).
Quotes
Sometimes the hardest thing about life is looking up at the stars and seeing how far you've come and not knowing what can become of you in the end. Brian Keith Stephens
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Albert Einstein
Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state. Thomas Mann
The freedom of an individual depends upon that individual’s freedom to alter his considerations of space, energy, time and life and his roles in it. If he cannot change his mind about these, he is then fixed and enslaved amidst barriers such as those of the physical universe, and barriers of his own creation. Man thus is seen to be enslaved by barriers of his own creation. He creates these barriers himself, or by agreeing with things which hold these barriers to be actual. L. Ron Hubbard
Courtesy YouTube et al
Anna Graceman performs "Rolling In the Deep" by Adele during Vegas Week on America's Got Talent (AGT) season 6.
Jackie Evancho performs "Angel" by Sarah Mclachlan from her album "Dream With Me" on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Check out Jackie’s video list: http://www.youtube.com/artist/Jackie_Evancho?feature=watch_video_title
Paul McCartney and Beatles favorite "Good Day Sunshine" greet the Atlantis crew of Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim first thing on Flight Day 8. Sir Paul and the Beatles' music have awakened a dozen past shuttle crews. "Good Day Sunshine" was played for two Discovery crews of STS-121 and STS-128.
The video with audio can also be viewed here:
Ha! Enjoy your Time (AND Space!)
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely products of a deranged imagination. Douglas Adams
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